Related papers: Mixing of metals during star cluster formation: st…
The formation of molecular clouds out of HI gas is the first step toward star formation. Its metallicity dependence plays a key role to determine star formation through the cosmic history. Previous theoretical studies with detailed chemical…
Stellar chemical element ratios have well-defined systematic trends as a function of abundance, with an excellent correlation of these trends with stellar populations defined kinematically. This is remarkable, and has significant…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
The interstellar medium of low-metallicity systems undergoing star formation will show chemical abundance inhomogeneities due to supernova events enriching the medium on a local scale. If the star formation time-scale is shorter than the…
We have studied the chemical enrichment history of the interstellar medium through an analysis of the n-dimensional stellar abundances space. This work is a non-parametric analysis of the stellar chemical abundance space. The main goal is…
Stars born from the same molecular cloud should be nearly homogeneous in their element abundances. The concept of chemical tagging is to identify members of disrupted clusters by their clustering in element abundance space. Chemical tagging…
Recent observations and hydrodynamical simulations of star formation inside a giant molecular cloud have revealed that, within a star forming region, stars do not form evenly distributed throughout this region, but rather in small…
I review theoretical models of star formation and how they apply across the stellar mass spectrum. Several distinct theories are under active study for massive star formation, especially Turbulent Core Accretion, Competitive Accretion and…
Stars form in dense, clustered environments, where feedback from newly formed stars eventually ejects the gas, terminating star formation and leaving behind one or more star clusters. Using the STARFORGE simulations, it is possible to…
We use 112 N-body/hydrodynamical simulations in the standard Cold Dark Matter universe, to follow the formation of galaxy-sized halos and investigate the chemical enrichment of both the stellar component and the interstellar medium of…
The chemical composition of a star's atmosphere reflects the chemical composition of its birth environment. Therefore, it should be feasible to recognize stars born together that have scattered throughout the galaxy, solely based on their…
Star clusters stand at the intersection of much of modern astrophysics: the interstellar medium, gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution, and cosmology. Here we review observations and theoretical models for the formation, evolution, and…
Recent observations indicate that star formation occurs only in the molecular phase of a galaxy's interstellar medium. A realistic treatment of star formation in simulations and analytic models of galaxies therefore requires that one…
In the era of large stellar spectroscopic surveys, there is emphasis on deriving not only stellar abundances but also ages for millions of stars. In the context of Galactic archeology, stellar ages provide a direct probe of the formation…
Population III stars are believed to have been more massive than typical stars today and to have formed in relative isolation. The thermodynamic impact of metals is expected to induce a transition leading to clustered, low-mass Population…
The isothermal gravitational collapse and fragmentation of a molecular cloud region and the subsequent formation of a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The clump mass spectrum which forms during the fragmentation phase can…
The conversion of gas into stars is a fundamental process in astrophysics and cosmology. Stars are known to form from the gravitational collapse of dense clumps in interstellar molecular clouds, and it has been proposed that the resulting…
We present a high-resolution simulation of globular cluster formation in a galaxy merger. For the first time in such a simulation, individual star clusters are directly identified and followed on their orbits. We quantitatively compare star…
(Abridged) We present a series of decaying turbulence simulations that represent a cluster-forming clump within a molecular cloud, investigating the role of magnetic fields on the formation of potential star-forming cores. We present an…
Recent progress in the understanding of star formation is summarized. A consistent picture is emerging where molecular clouds form with turbulent velocity fields and clumpy substructure, imprinted already during their formation. The clouds…